The Mekong Giant Catfish is one of the endangered species that Mekong dams may make extinct.

The proposed Xayaburi dam is to be located 150 kilometers
downstream from Luang Prabang and is the first of a proposed
12 dams to be built downstream on the Mekong. Plans are for
six dams with Vientiane in the middle and seven more projects
toward the Lao-Cambodia border.

A meeting of the four countries was held in Sihanoukville,
Cambodia, March 25-26. The result of the meeting was to hold
a final meeting on April 21, the day before a final decision must
be reached, six months after Laos presented its proposal. The
decision was to punt the final word on the dam to the ministerial
level.

The review of the dams provided by the MRC focused
primarily on environmental concerns and it stated that social
issues related to resettlement and other local impacts were
outside the scope of its review.

>> THE REVIEW OF THE DAM PROVIDED BY
THE MRC FOCUSED PRIMARILY ON
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS AND IT STATED
THAT SOCIAL ISSUES RELATED TO
RESETTLEMENT AND OTHER LOCAL
IMPACTS WERE OUTSIDE THE
SCOPE OF ITS REVIEW.<<

The dams would transform 55 percent of the downstream
river into a reservoir, making it into a series of impoundments
with slow water movement, according to the report. Earlier
the MRC had advised a 10-year moratorium on the dam issue because not enough study had been done
and there remained too many uncertainties.

The MRC report did state, however, that
the proposed cascade of six dams upstream
from Vientiane, excluding proposed tributary
dams, would result in fish losses due to
reduced capture fisheries estimated at about
66,000 tons a year. The Mekong is home to
more than 1,200 different species of fish second
in biodiversity only to the Amazon. The
report also said that the livelihoods of about
450,000 people, mostly in Laos and Vietnam,
would also be at risk to some extent.

The four countries agreed to disclose to
the public the MRC review, which has been
used by them in assessing the Xayaburi
project.

Some of these uncertainties about the Xayaburi
project were addressed by environmental
groups and Jeremy Bird, outgoing CEO
of the MRC, at a Bangkok forum two weeks
ahead of the formal MRC
meeting in Cambodia.

Environmentalists say. the 240-megawatt
Don Sahong, located in the Khone Falls area
in southern Laos and 1 kilometer upstream
of the Cambodian border, would block the
area’s most important fish migration route,
undermining fisheries-based livelihoods
throughout the basin.

For example, the Mekong is one of the
world’s great freshwater inland fisheries
and is home to the threatened species, the
Mekong dolphin and the Giant Mekong
Catfish. Each year 2 million tons of fish are
taken from the Mekong. A large part of the fish population comes from the lakes of
Cambodia. Fish from Tonle Sap, a lake and
tributary, and the Mekong, for example,
provide more than 70 percent of the protein
in the diet of Cambodia’s 15 million people.